Log Still Distillery

Log Still Distillery hosted the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony this year. It was held in their event venue they have named “The Legacy”. It is an excellent venue with a large auditorium with a stage, catering kitchen, a bar and several smaller rooms and hallways where people can meet. It is not the only entertainment venue on the distillery grounds – they have an amphitheater which they use to host outdoor concerts. They also have a couple of renovated far houses that they have turned into bed and breakfast rooms. They also have a distillery.

The distillery is located in Gethsemane, Kentucky on the spot where J.W. Dant built his distillery. There are some ruins of the old distillery on the site, but they built their new distillery further up a hill from the original site. They have used much of the old building materials in building the new site, including a post war Quonset hut building that was a bottling line building when Schenley owned the site. They have paid a fitting tribute to their Dant heritage.

The distillery is the brain child of three Dant cousins, Lynne, Wally and Charlie Dant. They wanted to get the family back into the distilling business several years ago, and purchased the old J.W. Dant property and built a distillery. It is an attractive distillery with a column still clad with a copper cover made to look like a poplar log. Legend has it that J.W. Dant’s original still was made from a poplar log back in the year 1836. They have several fermenters feeding the column still and they use a pot still doubler. Lynne Dant gave Rosemary and me a personal tour of the facility. Lynne told us that they started with four smaller fermenters, but soon expanded their capacity. These original fermenters are open topped, but the newer, larger fermenters are closed topped. They make three mash bills – a rye, a traditional Bourbon and a wheat recipe Bourbon. They also make a gin and have a separate gin still – a small pot with a gin basket. They also source a Tennessee Whiskey that they bottle on site. This is paying homage to Wally’s days living in Nashville, Tennessee.

Rosemary and I ended the tour when Lynn took us to the tasting room and gift shop in a separate building. There I tasted the Tennessee whiskey, the wheat recipe Bourbon that was contract distilled for them, and their traditional Bourbon that is a sourced Bourbon. Rosemary tried their gin and barrel aged gin. We found all of the spirits very good.

Unfortunately, we had to make the tour a short one due to other obligations on that day. However, I would like to return for a more in depth tour. I am sure that Lynne would have liked us to see more. She is a very gracious tour guide and seemed disappointed that we had only about an hour for the tour. We will return.